Liquid and granular automatic dishwashing detergent components while necessary for various cleaning benefits, often can create other problems. For example, carbonate, and phosphate, conventional detergent ingredients, are known to contribute to formation of hard water film on glasses.
Organic dispersants can overcome the problem of unsightly films which form on china, especially on glassware, due to calcium- or magnesium-hardness- induced precipitation of pH-adjusting agents. However not all dispersants work as well on the various types of precipitation.
Although conventional low molecular weight polyacrylate homopolymers are satisfactory in the dispersion of insoluble calcium carbonate in automatic dishwashing detergent compositions, it has recently been found that low molecular weight modified polyacrylate copolymers enhance filming performance in automatic dishwashing detergent compositions containing silicate.
Not only do the low molecular weight modified polyacrylate copolymers of the present invention prevent hard water filming due to precipitation of silicate but it has also been surprisingly found that these modified polyacrylates show improved enzyme performance (i.e. bulk food removal) in enzyme containing automatic dishwashing detergent compositions.